


Whose Heart is Torn

by Issay



Series: Character Studies [6]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Angst, Character-centric, Multi, Portraits, Post-Season 2, spoilers to season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-31 01:24:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3959176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Issay/pseuds/Issay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They never don't tell you that this freedom comes with a price of being the homeless traveler, going where the storm winds take you. After some time on the deck you just stop resisting because you understand that it's either living in chains or living in nothing at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whose Heart is Torn

The vast, open space of an ocean – the bluest blue of the sky meeting with the ever moving depths of greens, blues and grays – is freedom incarnated. A man on the sea, sailing under a black flag is as free as it gets in this dark world of obligations and tributes. At least that's what they tell you when they're recruiting you, those men with rotten teeth and scarred faces. And at that time, you believe them. Well, they're not lying, at least not exactly. They just don't tell you that this freedom comes with a price of being the homeless traveler, going where the storm winds take you.

After some time on the deck you just stop resisting because you understand that it's either living in chains or living in nothing at all.

*

Some resist it. You watch them with a bitter smile and think they're fools, chasing something and gaining nothing at all.

Maybe you're right.

*

She rarely feels the need to think of home. It's an abstract concept to her until it's taken away from her and she catches herself walking the familiar streets of Port Royal, looking for Jack. It's a reflex, her eyes comb the crowd for his hat or his stupid mop of hair even without her thinking about it. It makes sense, Anne thinks with a scowl that frightens a passing whore, she has known him for a long time and he's been always there by her side, with his smirks and snide remarks and plans that backfired more often than not. He was the one who saved her life and fought with Charles to let her stay on the _Ranger_ , who taught her how to fight and who had shown her that sex can be about pleasure, not pain.

As she wanders the busy streets of Port Royal, it hits her: he is her home.

They went through so much together – the sheer fact that they sailed with Charles Vane would last them a lifetime because that man was something that just happened to others, like a storm or a stray bullet in the middle of a battle. Or maybe he was a battle himself and that's why no one could stand being around him for too long? All she knows is that Vane remains the only person she knows who is truly free and who revels in his own homelessness. Maybe to him it's freeing. But Anne feels she's lacking something, a part of her own body that isn't there but she can't see what's missing. It's time to go back to Nassau, she thinks, but some things have to change. She can't keep feeling like she's a burden. She's not and she has proven it to herself over and over again these days. Anne doesn't need Max and she doesn't need Jack. But she wants them. And he is never the variable.

*

Sometimes you hear those boring, pasty men in taverns, the kind that look like they wouldn't last a day on a pirate vessel, saying that you're a bandit. A thief. That you don't deserve to be treated like a human being because normal people stay on land, loyal to their kings and governors and tax collectors. They pay their dues and calmly take what the world throws at them – floods and droughts, pirates and thieving parties, pests, plagues and priests. They live their small lives, happy that they were never touched by the madness of the open sea.

You laugh at them and pity yourself at the same time.

*

Eleanor remembers that she used to have a home, a safe harbor for the time when the seas get rough, a home hidden between soft sheets and moans of pleasure. But it was so long ago she sometimes wonders if she didn't imagine it or maybe perfected the idea in her head, turning it around and polishing over and over again until there was nothing left from the original memory. Eleanor's so tired she would take this lie any day and lean on it.

Then, for a brief moments scattered in the harsh reality of always changing loyalties and movements, it was in the shadows on uneven walls, in the scent of leather and dry wood, in play of hard muscles under her fingers.

“I love you,” he whispered into her hair and now she clings to those moments, replays his voice and shudders, almost feeling his rough hands on her. It's good but it's never _enough_ and Eleanor thinks that now she lost it all. Her freedom – locked in the quarters of an English captain, her powerful position in Nassau and now him. Her. Them, both of them and these days they seem so far away because she knows that none of them cares anymore. She burned her home to the ground herself and Eleanor wants to lie to herself and think that this way it hurts less. Then she falls asleep and dreams of the _Ranger_ going after the ship that carries her to England. She dreams about Vane standing on the bridge of his ship, under white sails and black flag, coming to save her – and of lips tasting of salt water.

She wakes up feeling more homesick than ever.

*

Sometimes things go to hell – it's a natural order of things, they simply can't stay simple. The difference between a pirate and a sad slob of a man who thought he could be one is the nerve and ability to unfuck things when needed.

Or fucking them up, whatever the situation requires.

*

Once upon a time he had a home. It wasn't traditional or even legal but he was happy with the two people he loved most – and even if early winter mornings were dark and cold, he didn't care because there were arms to bury himself in and forget about the world. Back then he was James and he had dreams, beautiful dreams shared by those he adored.

And then everything fell apart. Thomas was dead and Miranda silently wept, watching the waves and thinking of what they've lost. He wanted to weep. He wanted to yell and to tear the world apart for taking Thomas away, he wanted to drown his pain in blood, he wanted…

He wanted to go home. But home was lost forever, buried in a cemetery of an asylum for mentally unstable.

Flint sighs and rubs his eyes, more tired than he ever was before.

Miranda's gone now too. There's a man missing a leg, crying in pain on his bed and fucking Vane is stalking the deck of his ship. Charleston is still burning on the horizon and by now for sure the news has reached appropriate ears in Boston. This is not a good time to be mourning but with her James lost the last piece of the man he once was. Last connection to Thomas and now he has only his own memories, good and bad ones but more of the latter, and the pain is almost intense enough to kill him. Almost.

“Who was she?” asks a gravelly voice behind him. Flint opens his eyes and looks at Vane (speak of the goddamn devil), eyebrows raised. “Who was she really?”

He's silent for a long time, listening to Silver's moans, bell on deck and the ever present whisper of the sea. He thinks. It's so hard to name it without sounding like a romantic fool. And he doesn't want to lie, just this once, to this man he loathes and respects at the same time and who has earned the truth.

“She was the road home.”

*

So now you know. It's either chains or the never ending search for Ithaca looming just beyond the horizon of the endless, shifting blue.

What will you choose when the time comes?

**Author's Note:**

> I started rewatching the series and this happened.  
> [Find me on tumblr!](http://issayscorner.tumblr.com/)


End file.
